Hospital Staffing Options in Portland, Oregon

The overall reality throughout the state of Oregon is that the general health status of the population is declining, with one of the biggest factors for this decline being the worldwide shortage of nurses. The recent covid-19 pandemic left many nurses with such unstoppable burnout that a high percentage decided to retire from Portland's hospitals and healthcare facilities. In the next two years, 67% of nurses under the age of 30 will likely decide to stop their nursing careers in these facilities, according to a study conducted to analyze overall nurse well-being, which found that stress and burnout are wreaking havoc with the understaffing they have generated.

Healthcare Staffing Challenges in Portland

Overall, the pandemic brought with it some very tough problems to deal with: an uncontainable number of sick patients during the strongest waves of the pandemic caused nurses to look at triage and emergencies differently. With too few support staff, too few tools on hand, and too many patients to care for at once, nurses found themselves in dire situations where no matter how hard they tried, they could not save all the patients they wanted to or care for them properly. Even before the pandemic, however, understaffing was a major problem in many sectors, for example in Portland hospitals, and this is why more and more nurses are looking to retire quickly from a job where the economic benefits are not enough to sustain a hard and exhausting job.

Healthcare management has had many challenges during this post-pandemic period, as hiring more staff overnight is a complicated task, which also means higher economic costs for hospitals and healthcare facilities in Portland. The more nurses decide to leave the workspace, the greater the burden on the remaining staff, and the worse the patient care, especially for patients who need emergency or urgent care on which certain procedures depend for their lives, such as renal patients who need dialysis regularly, for example; and the more risk there is for hospitals and healthcare facilities. It is understandable that nurses on demand are so important to the mental health of all hospital workers, and are also important to maintaining the health of the entire population of Portland.

Unfortunately, hiring travel nurses is not one of the best options for Portland, since the budget used for travel nurse contracts far exceeds that of the hospital and healthcare facility's nurses. The result is that, by comparison, the nurses feel that they are not appreciated financially and that the price of travel nurses is too high to make it worthwhile to invest in travel expenses, accommodation, etc.

Better Strategies for Staffing Healthcare Facilities

A more viable option, and one that many hospitals are certainly saving money with, is the option of using a per diem healthcare staffing app to search for per diem or PRN (pro re nata) nurses, which are temporary but with great advantages for both the hospital and the employees themselves.

Advantages of PRN/Per Diem Nurses

Some of these advantages are:

Overall money savings. Even if healthcare facilities and hospitals in Oregon decide to pay more per hour than they would normally pay to hire PRN nurses, they end up using less money overall, since they won't need to pay benefits.

Less resignation from their staff. Healthcare staff at healthcare facilities and hospitals in Oregon need support. There are stories of nurses giving up their proper breaks to cope with the growing crisis that comes with the nursing shortage, and many nurses are constantly fearful of making mistakes given the burnout they feel. By having more support, nurses will be able to do their job better and feel more confident about working there.

Patients will experience a better quality of care, and this will bring benefits to their health. It has been shown that if a patient's hospital care needs are not fully met, he or she may relapse several times over due to preventable illnesses, symptoms, and complications.

How to Find PRN Nurses in Portland, Oregon?

To fill PRN shifts in hospitals and healthcare facilities in Oregon, the best option is to use a healthcare staffing app like Nursa to find qualified RNs, LPNs, and CNAs ready to work at a facility. PRN nursing jobs are generally filled quickly on this favorite staffing app that has a large number of skilled registered nurses in Portland, Oregon, looking for work daily.

What About Portland Attracts Nursing Talent?

Portland, Oregon's climate is among the wettest of all U.S. cities, so its overall climate is quite humid, but pleasant. Portland's population is 642,162, with a high rate of older adults in need of home health and long-term care, so most of the nursing work is in these areas. Some things to do in Portland include outdoor sightseeing activities, such as visiting the region's countless green landscapes and gardens, which, thanks to their intense humidity, maintain a lovely annual greenery.